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Collecting New Information

Most of the information in your community profile will be a re-presentation of information previously collected and published for other purposes. If you need to collect new information, the methods you use should promote community self-determination. The community profile is not an opportunity for you to question community members in key positions about your personal interests or concerns. Members of the community are not paid to be your teachers. You should seek only the information needed to complete the community profile. The information needed to complete the community profile is:

   1. information available from public sources, and

2. information the community wishes you to include.

Think about the purpose of your directory, profile or study and who you should approach. Talk to people directly. Ring beforehand, and ask to see them in their office. Go to them, do not expect them to come to you. If you are a stranger in the community, do not ask for specific information. Ask open ended questions, such as:

'Please tell me what I should put into the community profile.'
'What do you think I should say about your community?'
'What would you like me to put in about your community?'

Then follow the lead given by your informants in the community. They know better than you do what they want known about their community, and which issues concern them. Make notes soon after you have spoken to them, and make your notes as full as possible. Do not put any information in the community profile or study unless you are sure it is either on the public record, or the community want it included. Use documentary sources and public records first. Then interview a few key people who are employed in public roles, and who will have information relevant to your study. Do not intrude on the community.

Do not make judgements about the quality, truth value, objectivity or accuracy of the information you are given. Report it as honestly and fairly as you can. Learn what it is the community wishes to teach you. Be open and receptive to unexpected lessons, and to being taught in ways you did not anticipate. Do not decide for the community what it is that people should know about the community. Learn to take your lead from the community, and to serve their priorities and wishes.

Scientists and academics draw information from a number of sources including events they observe, books and papers they read, and people they listen to. All academics use books and journals, often as their chief sources of information, but listening to people speak, and engaging in conversation is also important. Dialogue has potential for learning which reading by itself does not. Oral sources are the things people say which are not written down. Once an oral source has been written down in a book or a transcript it can be used in academic work the same way as a written text.

Oral sources include:

• things people say or have said
• voice recordings (eg; audio tape or film sound track)
• notes or transcriptions
• oral or written reports of speeches or stories
• memories of speeches or conversations

Oral and traditional sources should be acknowledge in the same way as written sources, following the Faculty Guide to the Presentation of Assignments. An example could look like this:

    Jambardi, S.O. (1997, March 5). Story told by a community elder.

Every society has its secret or restricted information. In Western culture, much information relating to defence, national security, police operations, information confessed to a minister of religion, conversations between a lawyer and client, a journalist's sources, trade secrets, medical information, banking and taxation records, are secret or may only be revealed only to certain people under particular conditions, or made public under certain other conditions. In Aboriginal Australia some information, such as the right to paint particular designs, tell certain stories, describe certain sites, reveal the content of particular ceremonies, belongs to particular individuals or families or religious groups.

Confidential and secret information will not usually be part of a community profile. If secret or confidential information is included in a document for compelling reason, it may be as an appendix which can be removed from any copies which may be available to the public. The appendix should not be included on the open shelves of any library copy. The appendix should have a title page or cover, with a notice stating who may have access to it. An explanation should appear in the main document.

Information of a sacred-secret nature should only be included in academic writing where these is compelling reason to include it, and where the writer has proper permission from people who have authority to give permission. Some Aboriginal religious secret information has been published in the past. Because information is published in a book does not always mean that the information is not secret, or that according to Aboriginal law it can be used openly. Songs and ceremonies often have outside (public) and inside (secret) stories and meanings, in which case the outside story may be referred to, while the inside story remains secret.

Many ethnic, cultural or religious groups have taboos or prohibitions on public discussion of specific matters. In a community profile or study it is important to learn about these prohibitions, and respect them in your writing. If the omission of material for cultural reasons may influence the meaning or conclusions drawn from your study, it is useful to explain to the reader that material has been omitted, with an explanation of the cultural practices involved. It is not acceptable to cause distress to members of a community by publishing a profile or study which discloses confidential or culturally sensitive material.

In some parts of Aboriginal Australia the personal names of deceased people may not be spoken aloud, and their photographs should not be published. This is not usually a problem in NSW, however if there is danger of causing discomfort in this way, personal names of deceased people should be avoided in the text, or a warning included on the title page. Deceased people may safely be referred to by their relationship to others, or their position.